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Audio By Carbonatix
Longmont and Denver transit users are frustrated that RTD’s $5.5 billion FasTracks plan hasn’t delivered a commuter rail for northwest metro communities or reliable bus service near the city center.
More than a dozen residents chimed in after seeing the findings of the 2025 FastTracks report during the RTD Board of Directors meeting on Tuesday, October 28, with most of them wondering why they’ve been paying taxes for twenty years for rail and bus lines that still don’t serve them.
Largely a bus and rail expansion plan for RTD, FasTracks is the main public transportation provider for the Denver and Boulder metro region. Voters in RTD’s service area approved FasTracks in 2003, agreeing to a 0.4 percent sales and use tax to fund it. The plan has also relied on federal funding, including more than $2 billion in grants from the Federal Transit Administration.
The 2025 FasTracks report came out in September; it’s the first report on the initiative’s progress since 2004. The RTD Board of Directors had the report on its Tuesday agenda for discussion, but didn’t take action, so the board still needs to finalize the report.
The A Line commuter rail to DIA, the R Line light rail connecting the A Line to the Nine Mile Station in Aurora, the W Line to Golden, the G Line to Wheat Ridge and the FF Line to Boulder have all been completed via FasTracks. However, the plan is still only about 75 percent finished, according to the 2025 Fastrack report, which was released in late September.
FasTracks is badly behind schedule and over budget, according to projections. It was originally a twelve-year plan with a $4.7 billion price tag, but RTD has already spent $5.5 billion on it and needs another few years and $1.6 billion to finish, according to the agency.
In the FasTracks report, RTD blames a decrease in public spending since the 2008 Great Recession and increased construction costs. Public transportation officials don’t expect those trends to reverse, but RTD is hopeful the state legislature will provide revenue from fees on oil and gas and short-term car rentals.
In the meantime, bus riders feel left out. According to Denver and Longmont residents who attended the meeting, they want to be better connected to the rest of the region, but they’re getting the brunt of FasTrack’s failures.
Longmont Left Hanging
FasTrack has unfinished projects in Denver, Highlands Ranch and Thornton, but the largest unfinished project is in Longmont, where RTD promised a commuter rail connecting it to Union Station as an extension of the B Line.
“Longmont has been kind of hung out to dry,” Ross Starritt, a member of the Longmont Transportation Advisory Board, said at the meeting. “Bring a FasTrack product to Longmont. It’ll bring Longmont much closer in to the rest of the region in a way that it really wants to be.”
Most of the seven-person Longmont board, which advises its city council on transportation, spoke at the meeting, but they each clarified they were sharing their own views, not the board’s. Alex Kalkhofer, the advisory board’s chair, mentioned that they had to get to the RTD meeting in downtown Denver by car.
“My group did have to drive here tonight because there’s no RTD bus between Longmont and Denver that could get us to this meeting and then take us home at a reasonable hour,” he said. “It’s a good illustration of the service gap.”
The FasTrack report says that RTD is facing a $559 million funding gap to finish the Longmont commuter train. Longmont and the rest of Boulder County have been last in line for a major commuter rail connecting them to Denver, but the county’s residents have paid about $280 million in taxes towards FasTracks.
“It takes imagination. It takes courage and willingness to get this done,” Longmont resident Kay Marsh said. “Does the RTD have the chutzpah to get this done?”
A call to better prioritize the Longmont commuter rail also came from the Northwest Mayors & Commissioners Coalition, which represents governments in Boulder, Longmont, Broomfield, Louisville, Superior, Westminster, Lafayette and Erie.
Not Enough Buses in Denver?
A handful of Denver residents complained to the RTD board about its unreliable bus system and declining service hours.
Denver resident August Salbenblatt told the board that he sets a twenty-minute timer when he buys groceries to make it home on time. Sometimes, he chooses to walk 45 minutes rather than wait for the bus.
“RTD Buses simply are not frequent enough,” Salbenblatt told boardmembers. “A bus that comes every thirty minutes or every hour just isn’t useful, because you can’t rely on it, whether that’s for going to work or going to the grocery store.”
Several Denver residents and activists, including members of the Denver Streets Partnership, mentioned a data point from the FasTracks report: that the total annual RTD bus service hours in the city for 2025 is 17 percent lower than what it was in 2003.
Denver resident Andres Barros told the RTD board that his son moved to Chicago because he “didn’t want to live in a place where having a car is a prerequisite.”
“It’s just not possible for someone to be independent and live in Denver without a car,” Barros said. “The function of transit and, particularly, bus service to meet day-to-day needs, not just commuting needs, is essential.”
RTD has yet to finish a $111 million project in downtown Denver that would create a light rail connection between A Line and L Line, from East 30th Avenue and Downing Street in Curtis Park to East 38th Avenue and Blake Street in RiNO.
“Residents and the area business community still strongly support having a transit connection,” Joel Noble, a Curtis Park resident, said. “We pay into FasTracks just like Boulder County. We have an unfinished corridor the same as Boulder County, and we need RTD.”
